spirit of norm smith

Abbey Holmes. Interview with Nick Blakey. abbey. “ great to see all your fans here in Melbourne. Great they can travel which must give you a boost “. nick “well yes it’s great that our Melbourne based fans honour the South Melbourne legacy” yes abbey remember they were the South Melbourne football club and still have swans supporters and swans families in Melbourne!!! ps just like the Lions !!!

Robbie Flower. He was special Could kick 50 metres plus on left and right foot Could run and bounce and handball and run past and evade two tackles and then kick a goal Could twist and turn and spin and weave through opponents whilst dodging elbows and knees trying to bring him down Could rise and lift and reach for a mark either on the wing or in the firward line to kick a team lifting goal

Both 50s were so ridiculous. Micro second and micro centimeters is enough for umps to gift the game to the swans !!!

Umps and AFL happy to have Swans winning.

Just one comment. JV7 is a midfield bull. His tackling is A grade. Elite tackle rating this year 7. Rated 6th total tackles for the AFL. Oliver down from 7 to 4 this year. Trac at 3 tackles per game. We are losing contested centre clearances. This is killing us. Combine this with turnovers and we are naturally looking like an average team. Goodwin reckons it will be an arm wrestle this week. Both teams will be super desperate. WHO stands up for us? News flash… if we lose it’s Armageddon!!! Goodbye top 4. We need to win. We NEED to win.

Saints at full strength. Absolutely their best 22 will be on the park. FFS. Agree they bring in Membrey, Crouch, Butler and Higgins. Hunter Clark also likely back in as Sub. Sinclair Wilkie Howard Wanganeenmilera Battle Hill Wilson Crouch Henry Butler Membrey Wood Higgins King Owens Marshall Steele Windhager Int Bonner Phillipou Paton Dow sub Clark outs. Webster. Caminiti. Collard. Sharman Jones emerg. Jones Sharman Webster

Yes not sure why we took 3 players to Perth. Kolt yes as travelling emergency but not Tomlinson and not Fullarton. Likely Casey will get Fullarton, Kolt and Ben Brown back in this week. Not sure if Connolly or Hustwaite are back from injury any time soon. Both have been out 3 and 5 weeks respectively now which hurts our young Casey team as well.

ANB Trac Bowsa Melksham Sparrow. Oliver. Salem. Lingers. Riv. all struggle to hit a target. Most float or kick sky high bombs. Windsor also lacks the bullet style or direct pass.

Yes would not mind Petty in defence. I recall it worked well in 2021 , hmmm yes our premiership year.

He’s not ready. Jeffo needs the rest of the year at Casey for sure. It’s not the right move and could do more harm than good.

Learnings ?? Memo to Goodwin. Hill. Wanganeen-Milera, Bonner. All used as the saints rebound quarterbacks. For me, time to put tag on Hill. He can create and run and hit targets. Under pressure that’s harder Memo to Goodwin. Windhager or Ross will be used to tag Trac or indeed Oliver if Trac goes forward. Learn to beat the tag or bring others to help block or negate the tag. Memo to Goodwin. Howard is their defensive marker. Don’t just have players kick to him in a contest. Have him play deeper in our key forward. Petty or JVR. Memo to Goodwin. Owens is their wildcard forward who can kick 3/4 goals and get their momentum. Ideally we’d have Lever or Hore type of defender on him. Please not Tmcd !!! Maybe use Howes but he’d need to go a bit harder than last week and be more defensively physical. Zero tackles was another poor effort.

Saints all full strength. At one stage they had 7 or 8 injured or unavailable of their best 22. Not this week !!!

If Bowey and JVR are fit to go this week , then we only have Jake Lever out of our Best 22 in my view. We have had a few injuries but overall our main players have been playing each week. No excuses at all for our loss last week or if indeed we lose to the Saints.

QED.

@dpositive agreed. Goodwin does seem to have so much faith in the process that he doesnt employ taggers. its another reason (reason 4 I think) why we scratch our heads at Goodys lack of strategy. He comments on how effective teams are on Trac or Clarry and having to adjust to put Trac forward (hardly amazing). Why didn’t we tag Reid/Kelly like the pies did or tag Walsh. Whilst we have midfield strength, it’s arrogance not to look to shutdown or restrict the opposition best mid.

Sparrow to Richmond. Apparently loved by Yze as they regular kick to kick sessions in the park and chai lattes in the local cafe. Only joking but I think Tom Sparrow must get the message that his place is not assured and he needs to step up. He’s not a boy anymore. He’s 24 next week. We are wanting to see more. More contested winning of the footy. More goals. More ball use efficiency.

Easy week for footy tipping. Looks a certain 9/9 week right now Until I end up with 5 again 🤣😡🤣😡🤣😡🤣😡. Freo to upset the pies 🤞🤞🤞

Who cares about the contest anymore!! Can he kick the footy. We have too many that can’t even kick it properly now.

Andy Moniz Wakefield. It’s time to give him a go. And not just one game. Three games minimum. He’s still learning but gives it a rip.

Jesse Hogan from the giants for his nature and just love to see him in a good place again mentally Sam Docherty from the blues for his courage and bravery Changkuoth Jiath from the hawks for his wild running at pace And that’s about it. Dont give a care for any of the rest !!!

Goodwin says we have taken a lot of learnings out of last week. I am sure he will roll out a strong strategy this week. As a strategic thinker, he currently is graded “fail” so we live in hope. meanwhile if you look at the draw ahead and think realistically, ouch …now at 6-4, if MFC loses 6-5 and it’s definitely panic stations Even if we think optimistically after 6-5, we would likely end up probably looking at 13-10 for the season. That’s a likely 7th position finish at best. At worst we lose the 50:50 games and we would miss finals. FFS the eagles loss hurts a lot. Need to beat the Saints !!!

Agree. Both were good for a while until injuries cruelly ended their careers. Both were targeted by the Dees after 6 years at their clubs and came onboard with draft pick swaps. Bizzell cost us pick 17 which Cats turned into James Kelly. He gave good service which cannot be questioned. Vardy was one of the smartest forwards you would ever see. Retired at 27. Way too early.

Smashed by the Eagles in a very poor performance Eagles definitely will scoop up all the votes. Likely votes 3- H.Reid. Embarrassed our experienced gun mids. Ouch. He bullied us without much of a whimper 2- T.Kelly. Did Goodwin not see him clearly as someone to restrict. 30 possessions as he ran free (like Walsh did the previous week) 1- J.McGovern. Dees players kicked it to him all night as if he was our key forward or Jake Waterman might get the 1 vote with his 5 goals by strong marks & straight kicking

Shutdown Kelly or Reid Nullify McGovern Craig McRae did it vs eagles the prior week. He had a strategy. Goodwin had nothing. btw Goody could have given a one vote to a Dees player but that would be pretending to be one of the Scott brothers!!!

Don’t panic … its only a spark !!